The 2009 Empire and Solidarity in the Americas Conference explores the past and present of consumer-based activism within the Americas. Since at least the 1940s, activists have developed strategies that attempt to engage with global markets in order to address a range of social justice issues. This political move by activists to privilege the market – and partially bypass the state – as an arena for generating change has become particularly salient under neoliberalism and warrants ongoing investigation and reflection. In different ways, the fair trade movement, as well as campaigns targeting particular products, corporations, or industries, have attempted to engage consumers in campaigns to reduce poverty and inequality, challenge labor and human rights abuses, improve environmental practices, support worker organizing, and stimulate popular organizations in Latin America, as well as educate northern consumers and challenge the global system of "free" trade. Can an inherently exploitative/unequal process – the northern consumption of southern commodities – also be a meaningful arena for international solidarity? How has the decision (or threat) to consume or not consume particular products in the United States been utilized as a form of solidarity with working people in Latin America? How have campaigns been used to pressure companies or industries to respect human and worker rights? What are the limitations, contradictions, successes/failures, and futures of consumption as an arena for solidarity between the North and South?